Hello Magento

I’ve been working with Magento, the open-source ecommerce new kid on the block. Quite powerful for just having come on the scene as a new release 6 months ago. It’s developing at a rapid pace and uses OOP or the Zend Framework for it’s base.

Having used Xcart extensively for over 4 years, this is quite refreshing. I also got pretty aquatinted with Ubercart (Drupal Shopping Cart) having recently used it in a project that only has a dozen or so items and low volume. It’s a nice drop in out of the box.

So as it stands here is how I rate the shopping carts (from least to best)

Xcart

It’s pretty full featured, but is stuck back in the 2001 way of programming big projects. Pretty monolithic in its design. Some features in Xcart are pretty smart, others are just a slapped together bare bones effort. I’m moving away from Xcart and don’t see any future in it.

Ubercart

This is a great, easy to manage, shopping cart with one caveat. It runs on Drupal, Drupal is the best content management system I know, but has a steep learning curve. If you operate a site that is mostly a content site and you want to sell some things, this is package to go with. Drupal can do most anything, is developed at a break neck pace and has cool modules popping up all the time. Ubercart can handle basic products with colors and sizes and simple backend needs. It’s user friendly and feels like the developers (Ryan and Lyle) have put good thought into making it a good experience for the customer.

Magento

This is the shopping cart to use if you just sell stuff. Just take a look at the features and you’ll agree, this is professional grade software. It still lacks gift certificate functions, but is really a breath of fresh air… stay tuned.